Friday Night Fictions (of a Scientific nature)

This past Friday was a very good evening of science fiction, with new episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, and the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

Some tardy thoughts on the evening.

Although I've often recommended it to friends who are fans of the Terminator franchise, not many of them watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Which is a shame, because after a rough Season 1, the show finally gained sentience with the introduction of new characters (Shirley Manson as an evil T-1000), the further development of others (Brian Austin Green as Derek Reese), and John Connor finally starting to accept his fate and growing a damn spine. Throughout Season 1,emo-ish Thomas Dekker as future resistance leader John Connor was the weakest aspect of the show, unable to keep up with mom Sarah (the lovely Lena Headey who looks awesome in a beater while brandishing a B.F.G.) or Terminator Cameron (strange little girl Summer Glau). Midway through S2, Dekker started grasping his character, and in this latest episode - "Today Is The Day, Part 2" - finally got it, for lack of a better term. Between questioning Cameron's programming, confronting Jesse for her murderous actions, and just the everyday weight of being the savior of the planet, John finally collapses, crying in Sarah's lap. There's only three more episodes left in this season (two of them with titles from Springsteen songs, for some reason), and I'm curious to see what will be resolved and what will be left open for next season. If there is a next season - here's hoping that Terminator: Salvation creates some interest in the show. If you haven't been watching T:TSSC, there are a few episodes up on Hulu, and the first season is on DVD.

Creator Joss Whedon was right when he plugged episode six of Dollhouse - "Man on the Street" - as "the one to watch". After five less-than-impressive (but still with interesting bits) episodes, the series has found solid footing. This episode focused on more than just Eliza Dushku's often-nearly-naked character of Echo, instead tossing out more secrets and clues about the Dollhouse organization (20 houses in all, located around the world), the rogue active Alpha, the existence of "sleeper" actives, and extremely disturbing sexual abuse of the actives by their handlers. The storyline about a software developer (well-played by guest Patton Oswalt) hiring an active on the anniversary of his wife's death every year so he could show "her" the new house he bought was oddly moving, and introduced the idea that people don't only utilize actives for nasty, dirty sex or other illegal activities. Demoted FBI agent Paul Ballard (former BSGer Tahmoh Penikett, and OMG, more shirtless/pantsless scenes pls, k, thks) finally got a lead on the existence of the Dollhouse through a message embedded in an ass-kicking Echo. This episode actually had layers, much more than the Echo-only focused stories of the first five. I'm taking this as a good sign, since Buffy the Vampire Slayer improved when it started to focus on more than just Buffy. Hopefully, Whedon & Co. will be allowed to continue in this direction. I'm not abandoning Dollhouse yet. (Although maybe the opening credits and commercial bumpers will start to feature more than shots of nearly naked Eliza?)

Finally, a few thoughts on the Battlestar Galactica series finale, which has already been recaped and discussed on many, many other blogs. (Here's a good one by Annalee Newitz.) I'm not going to recap the final episodes, nor really slice, dice, and analyze them. That will be done enough in the upcoming months and years by frustrated cultural studies PhD candidates.

Overall, I found the first hour or so to be spectacular television that kept me yelling at the screen "ohmygod they are NOT going to do, ohmygod, ohmygod, they just rammed into the colony". It was also admirable how they finally came full circle with various characters' dreams about the opera house over the entire series by resolving it in the CRC CIC. The riot that ensued after the "resurrection transmission interruptus" was phenomenal. It was quite satisfying to watch Chief Tyrol choke the life out of Tory after he learns she had airlocked his wife Cally, as well.

After Starbuck jumped the ship to the Earth (as we know it, anyway), and the survivors found it to be more than habitable - quite lovely, even - the show screeched to a halt in comparison to the previous hour. The writers felt the need to give some sort of resolve to every major characters' story. I found myself looking at the clock constantly - really, 40 more minutes? 35 more minutes? The survivors abandon technology, send the remaining ships into the sun (mentally piloted by Anders, poor guy), spread out over the earth and colonize. Tyrol exiles himself to what sounds like Greenland. Roslin shuffles off the mortal coil, Bill buries her and starts building their cabin. Kara disappears along with any explanation of why her character existed at all. Baltar and Capricasix are off to plow some fields. No mention if Doc Coddle found a way to easily cultivate tobacco for cigarettes. Helo, Sharon, and Hera live happily every after...

... and we then flash forward 150,000 years to a news report about finding the common human ancestor in the bones of the "Mitochondrial Eve", and Angels (?)Baltar and Original Six tut-tutting about the current state of the world, pondering if a machine/human conflict could happen again. There's some discussion about a "god", although Original Six admonishes "it doesn't like to be called that". Cue "All Along the Watchtower" and a montage of congestion, commercialism, homeless people, and robot technology.

So what does it all mean? That current humans descended not only from ancient humans, but ancient robots as well? That at one point we actually possessed advanced technologies (including advanced space flight) that we willingly abandoned for civilization's survival? Be kind to your artificial technologies or they too may revolt someday? The conclusion of BSG didn't irritate me as it did some people, I thought it to be a reasonable ending, except for the loose end that was Starbuck.

When the inevitable mega-DVD set is released, I look forward to re-watching the entire series from a different critical viewpoint, knowing the conclusion. This show will be severely missed, even with the "parallel history" movie from the Cylon P.O.V. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, and the "prequel series" Caprica coming this fall, which just seem like afterthoughts to cash in on the success of the original.